Update on the email problem

[ffutures]

As mentioned yesterday, I received an email intended for another person with the same name but very slightly different gmail address - basically, I'm xxxxx.yyyyy@gmail.com, he's xxxxxyyyyy@gmail.com

Normally this isn't a huge problem, but this time it contained the results of a blood test which might relate to cancer.

My initial belief was that it had been sent to the wrong person by someone typing in the wrong address, and I managed contact someone at the testing company and ask them to get it to the right person by another route, so hopefully that side of it is sorted.

But it's become apparent that something glitched and mail sent to xxxxxyyyyy@gmail.com was instead sent to me. I'm not sure if this was a one-off fluke or if it's happened before - I think in previous instances the sender has used the wrong address, but I may have missed others where this problem occurred.

Can anyone suggest a good route for reporting this to Google that won't require me to send them the original - confidential - message which is now permanently deleted?

later - as pointed out in comments, this has happened because xxxxxyyyyy@gmail.com is also my proper email address, a dot anywhere in the first part makes no difference, and the address in the initial email should have been something else - presumably xxxxxyyyyy2 or something of the sort.

Comments

[mrs-norris-mous.livejournal.com]

Is the only difference in the two addresses dot's as google ignores .

https://gmail.googleblog.com/2008/03/2-hidden-ways-to-get-more-from-your.html

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes. It would appear that they have allowed the creation of an otherwise identical email address except that theirs omits one dot.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Forgot to say that my account was created in the first batch of invitations gmail sent out, so hopefully the other one is a later interloper.

[mrs-norris-mous.livejournal.com]

They are the same email address. I suspect the other person miss entered their email address.

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

It's possible, I just never realised gmail works like that.

[uk-sef.livejournal.com]

This is a deliberate gmail / googlemail feature not a new glitch or bug. It's going to be an error on the part of whoever supplied or typed in their email address as yours.

I regularly get email from India (and have done for many years now) destined for someone with a company name partially matching mine who was apparently too stupid to remember how to complete their own email address while the sending company was also too stupid to put in protections to stop people from entering any old rubbish as their address (ie requiring that the initial recipient do something to actively validate being signed up).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

Yes, I get that now - sorry for the confusion.

[julesjones]

It's one of the problems of being an early adopter and thus owner of an address without any numbers on the end. Lots of people and their friends assume there's only one person called XXX YYY in the world, never mind the actual mistyping. Last time I tried to gently point out that they'd sent their email to the wrong Jules Jones, I got a snotty email back saying that yes, they knew there were two on the ward and there was no need to be so rude about emailing the wrong one. So, this person knew *two* of us, and it was still beyond their comprehension that there might be more...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

There are at least three people out there with my name - one works in the film industry and his address etc. are not easy to find (I've never managed it), so I've had some interesting phone calls and emails for him!